FARMINGTON – The rain may have turned the leaves soggy, but it didn’t keep people away over the Columbus Day weekend.
Instead of the leaf-peeping that was expected, people turned to shopping, eating and attending inside events.
And, yes, there were still some daring people who participated in outside activities, despite the weather. More than 70 runners turned out at Sugarloaf/USA’s uphill climb challenge Sunday during the Homecoming Weekend activities.
Laurie Blake, executive director of the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce in Farmington, said she received numerous calls last week from tour bus companies planning to come to the area during the long weekend. She said she didn’t believe the weather stopped them from coming to the county.
The rain started Friday night. By Monday morning, National Weather Service observers had tallied the inches: Farmington received 5.7 inches of rain, observer Dennis Pike said Monday, with the bulk falling Sunday.
Already above average
The weekend’s weather pushed Farmington to nearly 46 inches of rain this year and caused it to slightly exceed the annual 100-year average of rainfall, which is 44.75 inches, Pike said.
Up in Eustis, observer Betty Wing said that she had measured 3.72 inches of rain by Monday morning, and it was still coming down at 9:30 a.m.
“We haven’t been out of the clouds since it started,” she said. The clouds were at treetop level, she added.
It could be worse, she said; it could be snowing, as it was in Colorado. They say 1 inch of rain equals 11 inches of snow, she added.
“It’s coming this way, too,” she said. “You know darn well it is going to come, eventually.”
Rangeley observer Tom Haggan said about 3.6 inches of rain had fallen there. Livermore Falls observer Harold Souther said he measured 4.68 inches from 9:30 p.m. Friday to 7 a.m. Monday.
Only one area road was reported to have some flooding, and that was Route 142 between Weld and Phillips, said Tim Hardy, Franklin County Emergency Management director, on Monday.
Busy, anyway
“It was extremely busy up here,” Jim Jannace, president of the Rangeley Lakes Chamber of Commerce, said Monday.
With the price of gas and the weather, the owner of Jannace’s Backwoods and Nancy’s Gifts said he didn’t think it would be busy.
The people came and the weather gave them a chance to shop, he said.
“There were a lot of people around,” he said. “It was crazy.”
Priscilla St. Louis of Sunrise View Farm in Rangeley said they didn’t have a lot of tourists at their open house this weekend because of the weather, but did have their regular customers.
However, St. Louis said that the Lakeside Theater in Rangeley did have a good showing for Madeleine de Sinety’s show “Elements,” a collection of photographs of Maine logger Matt Lord.
Sue Foster of the Sugarloaf Outdoor Center in Carrabassett Valley said Monday that they didn’t have as many people turn out for the uphill climb this year as in the past, but there was still a good turnout. There were more children than usual, she said, who ran a modified course that limited exposure to the rain.
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